


A Shock of Color

by urisarang



Category: The Mandalorian (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Beta? I hardly know her!, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, I woke up at 2am and had to write this in one go, M/M, Migs Mayfeld POV, Pre-Relationship, rated for language
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-17
Updated: 2021-03-17
Packaged: 2021-03-26 02:47:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,061
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30099126
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/urisarang/pseuds/urisarang
Summary: Everyone lives in a world of blacks, whites, and greys—it isn't until you make eye contact with your soulmate that you first see color.Migs is pushing 45 and still living in a world of greys.  He holds onto the hope that he'll meet that special someone but that hope is starting to fade day by day.  Maybe there just isn't someone out there for a person like him.Or maybe they've been hiding behind a suit of beskar this whole time.
Relationships: Din Djarin/Migs Mayfeld
Comments: 33
Kudos: 119





	A Shock of Color

**Author's Note:**

> Don't look at me, don't judge me. This demanded to be written and I live to serve. Also, I'm not sure if we have any soulmates stories yet? Do we? Well, either way enjoy something very different from any of the things I was supposed to be working on instead of this xD 
> 
> <3

Migs had gone his whole life without seeing color, like most everyone else. As a little kid he often dreamed of what it would be like to see the world in a new way. Color wasn’t a concept he could wrap his brain around, but he liked the idea of it. 

Plus, all the holos made it sound romantic and beautiful. Love at first sight that made the world just _pop_ into full beauty—who wouldn’t want something like that? So like most everyone his age he went out of his way to make eye contact with everyone.

And by everyone? He really meant everyone. He didn’t give a shit if they were a boy, a girl, a twi’lek or a fucking gungan. That shit didn’t matter to him, he was fully wrapped up in the romantic propaganda that everything would magically be better if he met his soulmate. 

Finding out that was a lie was a slap to the face if there ever was one. Talk about rude awakenings.

As it turned out? His parents were never soulmates—not something he knew about—certainly not something they talked about. But his mom? She could see color.

His dad couldn’t. 

It didn’t make any sense to a young Migs. If his parents weren’t soulmates why were they even together? Why wasn’t his mom with the person who made her see color?

Asking his parents that question turned out to be a big fucking mistake.

He nearly died that night, probably would have if his mom hadn’t kept a secret blaster in the house. Turned out? Migs was the reason she wasn’t with her soulmate and why his father drank himself to sleep nearly every night.

She hadn’t met her soulmate until she was already 6 months pregnant with Migs and happily married to his father. Migs wasn’t so sure he believed her when she said she was happy with his dad. He hadn’t ever seen them happy, but then again that was all his fault so maybe that was on him.

They had decided to stay together for the baby, for him. They packed their things and went off-world, found a hole-in-the-wall planet to settle on. Somewhere her soulmate wouldn’t be able to find them and made a life there. As much as a life as they could anyway.

But their marriage never recovered.

Slowly but surely the seeds of jealousy and doubt had grown within both of his parents. They had assumed that since neither one of them had met their soulmate by the time they hit 30 that they never would. 

So they had gotten hitched.

Funny how life works out like that sometimes. Well, as funny as anything can be when you’re in the hospital being treated for bruising around your throat from your father’s own hands. 

In hindsight, that’s probably when and where Migs got his love for dark humor. Humor is a coping mechanism, but even still when he really got going? Most people tend to look at him funny. 

Fuck um, he thought to himself. It was his fucked up life and he could joke about it if he wanted to.

After that shitshow, they ended up moving again—this time on the run from the authorities. As it happens, shooting your husband dead in cold blood? Kind of frowned upon even toting an abused kid behind you the whole way. 

They went from world to world, never staying at one place for too long as they slowly made their way across the galaxy.

That was when Migs was first introduced to the criminal underground, though he didn’t know it at the time. He just thought his mom had a lot of really strange friends all over the place. So sue him, he was a stupid ass kid. 

She became a small-time spice runner to afford hopping from system to system. A dangerous thing to do on your own and a downright insane thing to do with a kid. That’s probably why it worked for so long. No one would expect the soft-spoken single mom to be packing that kind of stuff. Not with how sweet she always was.

She never touched the stuff and once Migs grew up a little and became wise to what was going on? She made damn sure he knew better too. 

He would never forget the day she took him for a walk through one of those free clinics in the bad part of town. Her lips were tight and her face grim as she showed him the dark side of her job. The spice addicts.

It was horrifying to see how low people could really get. So strung out they didn’t even know their own name anymore. 

Count that down as one lesson he wouldn’t need to be taught twice.

It was a double edged sword showing him that though. After that day she started taking fewer and fewer jobs. Migs could see the guilt weighing her down. She had toughed through it before because they didn’t have a fucking choice—but he was getting older. Was able to pick up odd jobs moving random shit from point A to point B for some cash under the table.

They weren’t starving. 

They might not have been living well but they managed. It was worth every callous on his hands to see the weight come off his mother’s shoulders bit by bit.

Then he hit 14 and his life changed. He was old enough to be recruited, old enough to apply. 

The minute he finished eating his birthday breakfast Migs had kissed his mother on the cheek and said he was going to go out. He beelined it for the Imperial recruitment center. There was always one in every world—no matter how backwater. The recruiters eye balled him pretty hard when he first walked in the doors, not that he could blame them.

He was a stick of a kid, all limbs, no meat, and sporting a baby face to boot. He looked like a tall child—but then he showed them what he could do with a blaster and a rifle.

They couldn’t wait to sign him up.

Growing up in the criminal underground as a kid had quite an effect on Migs. Where most kids played silly games he learned skills. Sure, at the time he thought of them as games. Playing hide and seek with adults was way, way better than with other kids. They were so much better at it and the longer he could go before they found him? The more treats he earned.

There were even a few regulars, actual friends of his mom, that took him under their wing. They watched him whenever his mom had to do a dangerous run and couldn’t bring him along.

And that’s where he learned to shoot.

It quickly became his favorite game to play. He was good at it, really good. Put a blaster in his hand? Any blaster or rifle? And he could shoot it. He would spend hours and hours practicing with every weapon he could get his hands on.

Chi’ta showed him the importance of knowing your weapon inside and out—and the dangers of not properly caring for them. They would run drills over and over and over again on how to disassemble and reassemble their weapons until Migs was just as fast at it as she was.

He would spend hours on the range until his name was the one on top of the records. A natural they said, born with a gift.

His mother was less than pleased when she found out about it. Made him swear to not join up with the gangs. He agreed, but he never said anything about the Imperials. 

The ink wasn’t even dry on the paper before they were showing him around the little base. Showing him off at the range. 

They would fast track through sniper school, they said. Much safer and better pay than being a trooper. An Imperial sharpshooter—he liked the sound of that.

Hours later with his pocket heavy and full of sign up credit chits. His heart was soaring. He was going to be someone. Going to take care of his mother like she had taken care of him. She could finally find a different job, something that didn’t make her frown so much.

He was going to be a good son.

Didn’t turn out quite the way he expected when he told her the good news. She started to cry, and he couldn’t understand why. This was a good thing! They would be able to afford all the things they couldn’t before. They wouldn’t have to move or hide anymore.

He was one of the good guys now, they’d sweep what his mother had done to save him under the rug. 

They promised.

She got real quiet after he told her that. Pulled him in close and hugged him tighter than he’s ever been hugged before—tighter than when he nearly died even. She didn’t say anything again for a long, long time. 

When she finally did speak it was just to say how much she loved him and how proud she was that he was doing what he thought was right. Her phrasing and tone was off, but he wouldn’t know that until many years down the line.

Not until Burnin Konn.

He had grown up around criminals, lived in the moral grey his whole life so the things he did with the Imperials? He could justify it to himself. It was for the greater good of the galaxy, at least that's what the posters said. 

What a load of horse shit.

They weren’t helping anyone but themselves. Time and time again they were putting down rebellions in small villages, in poor towns. They weren’t fighting rebels so much as they were crushing farmers underneath their boots. 

Taking what little they had and keeping it for themselves. Not because they needed it—the Empire was rich beyond the scope of his ability to comprehend—but just because they could.

Maybe the Empire was founded on principles once upon a time but now? It was run by greedy pieces of shit who only thought of themselves and how they could get ahead of everyone else. 

People like Valin Hess.

If Migs had only known then what he knew now? He’d have shot that piece of shit dead from a mile a way and hitched a ride off world without a second of hesitation. 

Burnin Konn.

Countless thousands lost their lives, countless more lives were ruined beyond any hope of recovery. And for what? 

It didn’t even work.

Didn’t come fucking close to teaching the rebels, the new alliance, a lesson. All it did was earn a shiny new medal for Hess’s chest. A metal that even now gleamed in the light as if the sick fuck polished it nightly.

Proud of what he had done.

Of those he killed.

Migs wasn’t a coward, he didn’t go into the officer’s mess because he was afraid of Hess. Fuck no. He was afraid of what he’d do to him. 

He had lost nearly everything he ever loved because of that man. Even looking at him made his blood boil and his trigger fingers itchy. He had to turn away, couldn’t stand to look at the man. He said he’d help Mando get his kid so that’s what he was going to do. 

Walking into the officer’s mess and shooting Hess dead wouldn’t help. He tried to tell Mando that, but the words stuck. Caught in his throat like the screams of the burning—the dying. 

That should have been the end of that. Migs was already wrecking his brain for another way to get the info. Some other access point he could sweet talk his way into but the Mando wouldn’t listen. 

A man on a mission to get back his kid.

A noble goal if there ever was one, but it blinded him to other options. Migs wasn’t in any place to argue, he had made way worse calls in the heat of the moment so he just passed the stick over to Mando and watched him walk into the room.

He probably could have argued his case, tried harder but he didn’t. He had a perverse desire to know what was hiding under the Mando’s helmet. Always had.

Back when he had first met the guy on that mission it had always rubbed him wrong not being able to see the guy’s face. In the underground? Not showing your face was a slight at best and an act of open aggression at worst. 

You lived and died on your reputation, and the fact that Mando wouldn’t show his face? It bothered Migs in a special sort of way. Especially when Xian had let him in on the little secret of why he _never_ took it off. 

Not ever.

Some weird throwback religion where they didn’t believe in soulmates? Where they thought it was a trick from the devil or whatever. Meant to tempt those off from a path of purity?

Migs had met some crazy people in his day, but that one took the cake. How could anyone be a soulmate denier when the galaxy was full of them? Why would anyone choose to live life in black and white never even dreaming of a day they could see color?

It was insane.

Sure, Migs had seen the less savory side of what soulmate bonds could do to people. But he never gave up hope. It was childish and stupid—he’d never admit it out loud—but he believed. 

He _knew_ there was someone out there for him. He had seen what happened when his mother had given up too soon so he never would. Kept holding out that one day it would happen. 

His 30’s came and went without it—but his mom was 32 when she met hers. He was probably just unlucky like her. 40 came and went and he shrugged it off. He could wait because it would be worth it in the end. He couldn’t risk getting attached to anyone only to have a fucking shitshow like what happened with his parents.

At 43 he started to lose hope day by day. Maybe there just wasn’t anyone out there for him. On bad nights he would wonder if they died on Burnin Konn before he got the chance to meet them.

On the worst nights, the nights he didn’t get any sleep, he would wonder if he killed them. Not knowing who they were, what they could mean to him. He killed so, so many people as a sharpshooter—and they never saw his face. 

He would never know.

Those nights were the biggest reason he changed as a person. The guilt of what he had done and the possibility that he could have done something as abhorrent as killing the other half of his soul? 

He deserved to be locked up and stopped. Hell, he had backstabbed a single dad with his kid—he hadn’t let himself think about it at the time but in prison? He had all the time in the world to think.

To regret.

Even the hardened criminals he had grown up around wouldn’t have done something like that. He’d have been an orphan if that were the case. Burnin Konn might have messed him up something fierce where he stopped caring. Stopped thinking about what he was doing but double crossing the Mando? Even after he had held the man’s child in his arms and seen how nervous Mando had gotten? How much he cared for it?

Unforgivable.

So when the cop had shown up to spring him and that same Mando had walked out needing his help to get his kid back? He didn’t hesitate. Didn't even think about it.

He would do anything to make that particular sin right. 

And yet he still poked and prodded at the guy. Migs wasn’t sure if it was old habits, that he’s just that much of an asshole or if it was seeing the other Mando that made him act like a little shit. His mouth and crude jokes weren’t earning him any favors, he knew he should have stopped but he couldn’t. 

If anything, he was worse than before.

Something about seeing Fett’s face and not Mando’s rubbed him wrong in a special kind of way. On the ride over he did nothing but hound Mando about the reason he wouldn’t take his helmet off. Why he thought he was so much better than everyone else when all he was doing was hiding like a coward on the off chance he’d meet his soulmate.

“Hell Mando, just look at me!” He had said, gesturing at his bare face. “I’m pushing 45 and I still can’t see color and I still go out of my way to look. You know that better than anyone. What makes you think you are any better than me? Maybe we’re both a pair, each missing our other halves. 

“Maybe they died, maybe there never was anyone for someone like us if we haven’t met them yet,” Migs alternated between watching the road and watching the Mando for any sign of reaction. “Whatever it is? At least I have the balls to be open to the possibility of it happening. I’m not the one scared and hiding behind a fucking trooper helmet of all things.”

If he had known then he would have kept his big fucking mouth shut. Always talking out his ass, good old Mayfeld. Saying things with no regard to how the future might change.

How _everything_ would change as he watched from the outside of the officer's mess as gloved hands lifted a helmet up and off. How he might be forced to intervene anyway as Hess walked up and started hounding the Mando. 

Fucking shit, he thought as he watched the Mando flounder and panic. He blew out a breath as he walked into the room talking and thinking fast about how he was going to get them out of this only to be stopped dead in his tracks mid-sentence as Mando turned to look at him.

Brown.

The first color he sees is brown.

**Author's Note:**

> Barely edited as I wrote this in one sitting in a fury of keyboard smashing. It's all over the place in terms of timelines and I don't even care haha.


End file.
